Suspicious activity on Ticketmaster Account-tickets cancelled

Teasey

Hi all. I hope Im posting in the right place.

My sister's friend bought tickets for my nieces for the One Direction concert this week via Ticketmaster about 15 months ago.

Separately, she got herself tickets for The Script's recent gig, however when she got to the door she was refused entry to The Script as her tickets had been cancelled and resold without her knowledge. On further investigation it turned out that her ticketmaster account had been hacked and the hacker had tried to buy a large amount of tickets which ticketmaster treated as touting and cancelled all of the tickets purchased via her account-including the One Direction tickets.

Ticketmaster have agreed that this happened due to hacking and have agreed to refund the cost of the tickets but obviously this doesn't help my sister who now has to break the news to my 11 year old niece that she can't go to the concert she has been living for since last February.

What I don't understand is how ticketmaster can cancel tickets purchased on an account over a year ago due to suspicious activity of a few weeks ago. Surely this could only affect purchases made near the time of the hacking no? Also, as they have agreed that my sister's friend has done no wrong then surely she is entitled to the tickets that she purchased in good faith?

Any advice would be appreciated!

dudara

I can understand why Ticketmaster cancelled all tickets - the account could have been set up and used lightly for a while to establish it, before being used to purchase buckets of tickets. The tickets could have been resold since then, so they are potentially gone.

I think she should push with Ticketmaster to receive tickets for the gig. There will always be some VIP/spare tickets. I wouldn't often say this, but this could be a case for Joe Duffy. Some publicity around this could put pressure on them.

Wils110

Go mental at ticketmaster and tell them your getting on to a solicitor....it should be like when your away and use your credit card a good bit you get a call stating there's activity on your account is everything ok they don't just cancel it same rules to ticketmaster in my opinion

Teasey

Yeah that's what I thought.

I suppose my question is is there anything legally we can do? I mean, their T&Cs state that Ticketmaster reserves the right to cancel bookings which it reasonably suspects to have been made fraudulently. However, they have admitted that they know that these tickets were not purchased fraudulently so would that not mean that they can not now cancel the tickets and we are entitled to have the booking reinstated rather than just having our money back? Surely, when they've admitted that the account was hacked and the account holder did nothing wrong then she should have access to the tickets that she bought legitimately. The fact that they've resold the tickets is their problem...

I'm so annoyed at the way TM are just washing their hands of it, what good is a refund to an 11 year old who's just had the biggest treat of her life taken away from her. :mad:

foggy_lad

Teasey wrote: »

Yeah that's what I thought.

I suppose my question is is there anything legally we can do? I mean, their T&Cs state that Ticketmaster reserves the right to cancel bookings which it reasonably suspects to have been made fraudulently. However, they have admitted that they know that these tickets were not purchased fraudulently so would that not mean that they can not now cancel the tickets and we are entitled to have the booking reinstated rather than just having our money back? Surely, when they've admitted that the account was hacked and the account holder did nothing wrong then she should have access to the tickets that she bought legitimately. The fact that they've resold the tickets is their problem...

I'm so annoyed at the way TM are just washing their hands of it, what good is a refund to an 11 year old who's just had the biggest treat of her life taken away from her. :mad:

When you say the account was hacked was it done by professional geeks like yer man in the Matrix or was it done by someone known to her who somehow got her ticketmaster details? or did she think she could make a bit of extra cash buying up tickets and selling them on? People's accounts whether it is facebook email or any other are usually "hacked" through negligence of the account owners who don't have strong passwords or who tell others(family/friends) their passwords.

Yakuza

Bad form of TM not to contact anyone in relation to this, before unilaterally cancelling the tickets. In general, I'd like to see them taken down a peg or two for what is in my opinion seems like abuse of of a dominant position. The fees they charge are outrageous.

Teasey

foggy_lad wrote: »

When you say the account was hacked was it done by professional geeks like yer man in the Matrix or was it done by someone known to her who somehow got her ticketmaster details? or did she think she could make a bit of extra cash buying up tickets and selling them on? .

I don't know yet. She is genuine - it wasn't her trying to buy a load of tickets, anything she bought with her account was for herself with the exception of these 1D tickets which were gifts.

The account was set up with her work e-mail address and it is possible it might have been someone she knows who managed to work out her password but she doesn't know who it could have been and she didn't give her password to anyone.

Ticketmaster are investigating this - presumably so they can accuse her of negligence with her personal details, giving them an excuse to keep the money as well as cancelling the tickets :rolleyes:

the_syco

Did Ticketmaster tell your sister's friend that her account was hacked?

Teasey wrote: »

Ticketmaster have agreed that this happened due to hacking

Also ask Ticketmaster how was the account hacked? I'm assuming that the show is now sold out, but you should squeeze them for tickets for the show as unless the problem was a weak password, Ticketmaster fcuked up (well, you could argue they did anyhoos).

irishmover

the_syco wrote: »

Did Ticketmaster tell your sister's friend that her account was hacked?

Also ask Ticketmaster how was the account hacked? I'm assuming that the show is now sold out, but you should squeeze them for tickets for the show as unless the problem was a weak password, Ticketmaster fcuked up (well, you could argue they did anyhoos).

Most likely the hacking was caused by visiting the wrong website with rubbish security by mistake or something of that sort and nothing related to ticketmaster at all. My guess would be they wouldn't have a leg to stand on with making something out of it to ticketmaster in order to get tickets. Seems like ticketmaster done the right thing in refunding the full amount which is all they would need to do and if its sold out then what else can they do.

Advice would be to be alot more cautious in the future with passwords, website visits, malware/spyware/adware protection software, antivirus software. Hard lesson but hopefully a learnt lesson.

Feel bad for the 11 year old missing the concert...